


morning rain

by Oshii



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Caretaker Sam Winchester, Community: hoodie-time, Emetophilia, Food Poisoning, Gen, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Hurt/Comfort, Nausea, Season/Series 01, Sick Dean Winchester, Sickfic, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23385901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oshii/pseuds/Oshii
Summary: It was a dark and rainy morning in the middle of nowhere, and Sam sighed with weary resignation as he got up to go tend to his sick brother, whose fault this entirely was. SPN, sick!dean, food poisoning, caretaker!sam, emeto.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 95





	morning rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AnxiousCoffee (TheHallowedAngel)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHallowedAngel/gifts), [Zana_Zira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zana_Zira/gifts).



> lets-get-rickety-rekt asked
> 
> Thought: Early seasons Dean was a lot more stubborn-for-the-sake-of-it, so if he and Sam were getting supplies from a gas station and Sam mentioned that the food Dean was looking at seemed a little dodgy, well now it's a game and Dean *has* to win. Cue Dean having to pull over about 50 or 60 miles down the road to hurl, Sam finding it almost amusing, and both of them deciding they're stopping at the next motel they see.
> 
> Originally posted March 29, 2020.  
> Link: https://oshii.tumblr.com/post/613969800458371072/thought-early-seasons-dean-was-a-lot-more

The rain pounded against the windows, leaving trails down the glass in rivulets, sheeting down onto the roof and pooling darkly in the motel parking lot potholes. Outside their room, her dark headlights seeming to stare beseechingly onward, Baby sulked in the storm, the driving torrents of rain streaking down her glossy black exterior. Sam observed this, watching through the ground-level window, and was glad (hopefully it’d clean the bugs out of her grille, he hated doing that).

Dark gray clouds hung low and full in the sky, thick as a blanket, gloomily hiding the sunrise. The orange halogen streetlights were still on despite the digital clock on the nightstand reading 7:42 AM. Sam sighed, twitching aside the grimy motel curtains and turning back to the messy room. Day 2 in this pigsty and he was already going full-on cabin fever. The beds – two queens – were both unmade, sheets tossed and twisted, pillows rearranged and indented with arm patterns. Duffel bags were unzipped, clothes poking out, flannels and wet socks draped over the chairs, laptop plugged in on the single small table, TV droning out the morning news.

From the bathroom, obscured by the three-quarter-closed door, a thinly straining heave offered a cacophonous harmony with the TV weather report. Sam winced, sighing again. _No shit, it’s still raining,_ he thought, shutting his book on the paragraph he’d reread six times. _And Dean’s still puking, hooray_.

They’ d been on their way from Omaha to St. Louis to deal with a poltergeist problem when Dean had gotten into something nasty on a pit-stop – probably that homemade trout spread from the gas station back in Hiawatha, though he’d never admit it because Sam explicitly told him how gross and disgusting it’d looked and stank – and he had been violently sick nearly immediately and fulsomely for the next several miles, pulling over three times before Sam forced him into switching seats so he could drive to the nearest motel. Hence, their current holdout at this dump in Bumfuck, Nowhere, case paused and life on hold.

“Hey, Dean?” Sam knocked on the bathroom door, knuckles rapping idly. “You okay?”

An answering groan confirmed that his brother was, indeed, still living, but only barely. “Nnngh…no.”

Sam took that as his invitation, so he gingerly edged the door open and took a moment to savor the sight before him. Dean, sweating and hunched over the toilet in boxers and T-shirt, gripping the porcelain like life depended on it and visibly moist with bodily fluids, glanced up with watery red eyes at Sam’s arrival. “Don’t say it,” he croaked, spitting into the bowl, one hand sliding down to palm his sore belly.

“Dude, you’ve been puking for like…fourteen hours.” The quick calculations, going back from dinnertime last evening, made Sam’s eyes widen. “Holy shit, Dean. You still can’t keep any water down?”

Sitting back from the toilet, Dean drew up a shaking hand and softly wiped his mouth, looking away to avoid Sam’s scrutiny. “Been tryin’,” he rasped. “Got a little down.”

Sam’s own mouth tightened anxiously, and he glanced between the toilet (into which he avoided masochistically peeking) and his obviously sick brother. “Maybe it’s a virus. Some kinda bug you picked up. Food poisoning doesn’t normally last this long.” Some cases did, some didn’t. Depended on the pathogen(s), right? It’d been a while since Sam’s college microbiology elective.

Dean merely closed his eyes and groaned again, softly, thoroughly and miserably defeated. He reclined against the bathtub, one hand still resting on his stomach. In the fluorescent light, his bare legs looked obscenely sickly and hairy, closed eyes mimicking death and his face glistening with an accompanying waxy sheen.

Sam knelt down so that he might examine his brother more closely. Dean started with a soft hissing curse when Sam pinched his fingertip to see the extent of the dehydration. The nail bed blanched, flaccid and white, and refilled too slowly. Sam sighed wearily, hating that implication. “Dean,” he began, gently but firmly, “I’m gonna get you some water, and you’re gonna try and drink it.”

The answering groan was louder, negated, and Dean reflexively slid his arm tighter round his middle, turning his body away as if to shelter himself.

Sam pushed himself to his feet and grabbed a plastic-wrapped disposable cup from the shelf to run under the sink tap. “Here,” he announced, kneeling down and holding the cup to Dean. “C’mon, just a sip. You’re drier than my old econ professor, Ms. Markell.”

As hoped, that got a slight huff of humored appreciation out of Dean, the sudden lightheartedness lending him strength enough to wearily open his eyes and reach out to accept the cup with a shaking hand. Sam watched with bated breath as Dean heroically brought the cup to his chapped lips and took an obedient sip, face screwing up as the cold water slid down his parched throat. “Ggh,” he finished, but still held the cup, as if debating whether or not to force another sip. Amazingly, he did, and Sam exhaled audibly with relief at Dean’s compliance.

“There you go,” Sam congratulated, reaching out to accept the cup again. “Good start.”

A sudden foundation-shaking _**BOOM!**_ of thunder pealing made Sam jump, startled, while the fluorescent lights flickered forebodingly. “Jesus,” Sam muttered, heart pounding. “Prairie monsoons coming early this season, huh?”

Dean’s breathing grew a little heavier, nausea exacerbated by the excitement, and he abruptly surged forward to grab the toilet and pull himself over the bowl. Sam winced at his strained vomiting, feeling the compulsive need to reach out and comfort him. “Whoa, easy,” he murmured, leaning forward to rub Dean’s back through another harsh retch. “Take it easy. I gotcha. It’s okay.”

The lights dimmed and flickered again as thunder grumbled ominously outside. Man, Sam hoped the power didn’t go out, he reflected while rubbing soothing circles into his sick brother’s straining back. Last thing they needed was the hot water heater to blow, because they _both_ needed a shower, Dean pretty badly.

The nausea seemed to wane, and Dean wearily lifted his head, panting for air, a long crystalline string of drool hanging from his lip. “Nnngh, augh. _God…_ ”

“I know,” Sam mumbled sympathetically, giving him a consoling pat on the back. “You sound like a dying cat being squeezed like a tube of toothpaste.”

Dean mustered up enough energy to weakly punch Sam in the shoulder before slipping down from his throne and lying back against the bathtub, eyes closed, lips still parted in continued soft breaths. Sweat shone on his face despite how dehydrated he was, and Sam wordlessly got up to wet a threadbare washcloth in the sink, ensuring the tap water was cool but not too cold.

“Here,” he offered, voice gone soft again as he knelt back down and began lightly sponging off his brother’s shining forehead. Dean’s brow furrowed at the contact, but he didn’t twist away, so Sam continued wiping his face, blotting his neck, murmuring softly to him as he doled out his ministrations.

Dean hadn’t been this sick in years – neither of them had, really, and from what Sam could dredge up from his dreary childhood memories, it was usually big brother Dean tending to little Sammy while Dad was away or drunk or outside making an angry phone call to Bobby or Pastor Jim or who the fuck ever, the point was, Sam couldn’t remember having to ever take care of Dean like this, save for the one time he’d gotten totally smashed on his eighteenth birthday and Sam was the one who found him puking his guts out in the motel bathroom, ironically.

“How’s that?” Sam asked a little too abruptly, as much to jar himself from the reverie as he lowered the washcloth. “Feel better?”

Dean pressed his mouth together and swallowed with a dry wincing click, but he gave a slight nod, shifting a little to ease the soreness. “Mmhm. This sucks.”

“I know,” Sam repeated, glancing up as the overhead light flickered once more. “Lemme help you back to bed, Dean. Sleep’ll help, and I’ll bring this, too.” The washcloth pressed gently onto Dean’s neck, reaffirming its glorious presence.

Exhausted, having lost all the will to fight or resist, and never ever fucking eating trout spread or anything of the smoked fish spread variety again, Dean sighed in acquiescence. “Sounds good,” he mumbled. “Help me up.”


End file.
